Nurse Jackie Season 6 Blu-Ray ReviewMar 30 2015 07:05 PMWhen Nurse Jackie first premiered, fans wondered how Eddie Falco - best remembered for her role of Carmella in the Sopranos - the question many had was wheth... Read More

The Imitation Game Blu-ray ReviewMar 30 2015 02:58 PMAlthough the British mathematician and cryptanalyst Alan Turing played a key role in the defeat of Nazi Germany during World War II, his name was little know... Read More

Solomon and Sheba Blu-ray ReviewMar 30 2015 01:53 PMAfter the huge box-office successes of Biblical-themed films like The Robe and The Ten Commandments, was it any wonder that studios were falling all over the... Read More

Javascript Disabled Detected

You currently have javascript disabled. Several functions may not work. Please re-enable javascript to access full functionality.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves, shall we. Remember, Ty Willingham had Notre Dame 8-0 in his first season and bowl-bound. Look where he is now...ousted from South Bend and @ Washington.
That being said, Notre Dame looked good, but Michigan helped them out to their 2-0 start. A sophomore QB finally showing that he still has lots to learn and injuries to key positions hurt Michigan today. That and a swiss cheese defensive unit led by a D-coordinator that should go back to coaching Pop Warner football. After two games, the defense has allowed 34-pts, are 4-5 in the redzone (80%, 3-TDs, 1-FG), has allowed 2 100-yard rushers, and they can't tackle worth a lick to boot. Same old defensive story as in recent years. Michigan needs new coaching blood starting with Lloyd Carr and Jim Hermann. Even in a tough loss, Ohio State looks extremely good and is looking like the team to beat in the Big Ten this year. Michigan won't be able to match up and neutralize OSU's LBs.

Michigan is looking at potentially 5 more losses: MSU, Minnesota, Penn State, Iowa, and OSU. I hate to say it, but Sparty and the Bucks' offenses will wreak havoc on the Wolverines' defense.

Michigan's O-line is banged-up, but the patch-work line is holding it's own. And Chad Henne is starting to look like John Navarre by floating passes and locking onto his receivers and not looking off the coverage. What the heck happened?!!! His best pass of the game was on a flea-flicker (or perhaps the TD pass to Jason Avant on a slant pattern). He now has 2 poorly played games this season...ND being the other game.

The defense is really their weakness...it's soft, slow, and poorly coached. Wisconsin killed Michigan's defense with the underneath stuff by either running HB-screens or delayed plays like short passes to the TE or RB coming out of the backfield. They ran those plays numerous times...successfully. Michigan failed to adjust, or detect it. And this just in...they've now allowed three 100-yard rushers. I can tell you exactly where their run defense is weak...it's on the outside. A good running back with speed can beat Michigan's LBs and safeties to the outside for good yardage. Add a QB that can run with the ball and you've got a recipe for some huge rushing yardage against this defense. That's why I think they'll be doomed against MSU and OSU? I think that the Wolverines really have to start considering looking for a new Defensive Coordinator/linebacker coach. Jim Herrmann's time at Michigan has passed him by.

I'm starting the "Fire Lloyd Carr and take Jim Herrmann with him" campaign. Michigan's defense outright stinks...no speed, can't tackle, no pass rush. And now they've allowed 2 more 100-yard rushers (that's 5 100-yard rushers allowed in 6 games (2 against Minn). And while MSU's Jason Teague only had 72-yards, he carried the ball only 8 times for a 9.0-yd/carry avg.)

One of the reasons your run of the mill Div-1A football game is taking longer to complete is because of television. You have to take the mandatory TV timeouts into account for all these games. Almost every change of possession involves a TV timeout. A team scores...TV timeout after PAT and the before the ensuing KO. I would like to guess that games that aren't subject to television timeouts are substantially shorter in time to complete. Heck, I was at the Maryland-WVU game a few weeks ago and several times, I saw the players standing around the scrimmage line waiting for the TV-timeout to expire. I don't think that stoppages for IR add significantly to the time it takes to complete the games.
I agree with Scott. Change some of the things that he noted to speed the game up a bit.

That was one crazy football game. Reggie Bush carried USC yesterday, but Lienart showed why he's pro material. He's the Tom Brady of college football right now. That catch and throw on 4th & 9 for 61-yards was clutch. The Domers left too much time on the clock for Lienart and company. It would be a shame if ND drops out of the top ten after that loss. Even with 2-losses, they're a top ten team.
What a great day of games in college football.
GO BLUE!!!!!!

Was at Vegas this weekend and they were only taking 2 bets for 2005/6 NCAA Football:
USC 3/1
All Others 4/1
"If USC fails to win or qualify for the Rose Bowl, then All Others is considered the winner"
I might be off on the odds (maybe it was 2/1 and 3/1, or both 3/1, I can't remember) but I thought it was really odd that the sportsbooks hadn't broken down any of the teams outside of USC.
My personal feeling is that USC will miss Norm Chow's playcalling. They have enough offensive talent to overcome it this year, but with Leinart's departure, and at least either Bush or White going pro after this year, then we'll really see if Sarkisian is the "mini-Chow" that USC believes he is.

Yeah they're offensively loaded this year. Their offense could score 28 points against some of the lower-tier NFL teams.
Another interesting question (and maybe one that is overlooked) is what is going to happen defensively. I know Carroll is the "defensive guru" but by most accounts here in L.A., recently departed coach Ed Orgeron really held that D together. And he took another D-coordinator with him to his new head coaching job. Also, USC lost most of its D-line and Groots at LB (and maybe another LB?). That'll be tough to overcome.
Being a UCLA alum/fan, I can tell you firsthand what happens when coaches lose talented assistant coaches. Back in 87-88 we had a 20 game winning streak and the town was in love with Bob Toledo. Then we lost DC Rocky Long to New Mexico (who instilled his smoke-n-mirrors defense to great effect at UCLA) which led to the falling apart of the D starting in 1998, and then lost OC Al Borges (who is now instilling his diverse offense at Auburn, witness last year's great O over there) and now we've played 500 ball in the years since both left. Shortly after both coaches left, Cade McNown graduated, along with talented receivers like Danny Farmer, and the other talent from that era left over the next couple of years.
Not saying that will happen to USC, if they learn from their crosstown rival's plight, but it does go to show that assistant coaches often play as important a role as the head coaches.

UCLA fan (aka USC hater) here, and even I admit that that statement is pretty asinine as that team had probably a dozen or more current/future NFL players on it.
However, one has to admit that USC last year was outperformed by Cal in their game, winning only because of Cal's Not-So-Special-Teams gaffs (kicking and punting).
Also (and I was at the game and saw the fumble happen not 30 yards away from me) there was the critical Bush fumble that UCLA LB Havner picked up and was about to run back for a TD (no red jerseys anywhere near him or his path to the goal) which was "blown dead because his forward progress was stopped" when clearly it wasn't. Everyone at the stadium, and even my friends at USC who were watching the game at home pretty much admitted it was a fumble and a 14 point switch (USC ended up scoring, 7 points wiped from UCLA). Margin of victory was 5.
But both of those are "rivalry" games where the other teams get up for each other and know each other's plays and players well. The only really bad performance by SC last year was against Stanford in the first half, and in the second half they more than made up for it.
And I can't fault them for the Oregon State game. Anyone who WATCHED it (Corso, are you listening?) knows that the fog was so bad that you couldn't see 30 yards downfield, hence the passing game was impacted greatly.
And yet despite these caveats, I still think that last year's SC squad was a great team, every bit deserving of the title and the tag. I think Corso and Co. underestimate the quality of the PAC-10 teams, and so they reason "well they only beat 4 pansy PAC10 teams by 8 points" when perhaps the PAC10 teams aren't as pansy as they are made out to be by the national media.

Scott, my condolensces for your Wolverines. Not a Notre Dame fan, but you know as a UCLA fan (hence USC hater) that I'm glad that ND will probably give USC a run for their money this year.
I look forward to next week, when I see my Bruins take on the Sooners. Anyone have a gauge as to how good Tulsa is? I know they hung in there for 2-3 quarters against the Sooners, and TCu promptly followed their big win up with a tank-job vs SMU so they clearly aren't "all that".
Rice was terrible, score was 63-21 and it shouldn't have been that close, as we pulled our starters out after 1 series in the 2nd half. Even those of us at the Rose Bowl started feeling bad for the other team.
Of course UCLA's big weakness this year is DL (hence run D especially between the tackles) so Peterson should probably go nuts on us. Hopefully we'll be able to step it up defensively, or score enough points to make OU have to go with the pass.

Scott, you're still my contact person for one of the items on my Sports Things To Do Before I Die:

-> See a game at The Big House (pref. vs. OSU but I know those tix are near impossible to come by, I'll settle for most any decent game).

And if you're ever in SoCal and want to see a Rose Bowl game (UCLA home game as Rose Bowl tix are near impossible to come by) I always have season tix and can probably get you at least 1 if not 2 good seats. Not sure if Michigan is on the slate in the years to come, but I hope so (that last time we met a few years ago was very memorable).

It's a deal, Scott! By the way, unless it's a really huge game, or UCLA suddenly becomes awesome again (like Cade McNown's 20 game win streak in 1997-98), don't expect a packed house. L.A. fans in general (yes this includes USC) are very fickle and frontrunner-ish. Just 3 years ago USC was averaging 45,000 in attendance [if you don't count the annual USC/UCLA match which is always sold out no matter how badly the teams are doing] and have only recently doubled that (for obvious reasons).
True die-hards like me (who have used ticket stubs from the 20 game streak as well as the 6-6 seasons) are few and far between in LaLa Land.
Come for the beauty/nostalgia of the Rose Bowl but don't expect fans like you get in the Big 10/12 or SEC. You can find the "rabid bandwaggoners" currently at the Coliseum (probably the same ones who were in blue/gold at the Rose Bowl during 1997/8), but those guys couldn't tell you who quarterbacked before Carson Palmer (or that he was a 50% W/L QB before his final season) at USC.

Fair enough, George and I certainly didn't mean to imply that all USC fans are bandwaggoners.

The kind I'm talking about are SoCal natives (they live here) but they are belligerent and extremely vocal and cocky about their "USC Fan" status, but clearly (very clearly) didn't go there, and have no real ties to it and weren't fans when they were pulling in .500 seasons. Yet they happen to be the most vocal and obnoxious. I am thinking they're ex-Raider fans who are sick of L.A. not having a team. (btw, I'm a Raider fan so I'm not digging on them as a whole)

Funny but I'd bet that 99% of those I describe in the last paragraph, all of their USC clothing has Copyright 2004 or later on it

I know many USC grads (my friends and contemporaries) and none of them are obnoxious like the ones I'm describing as bandwaggoners. They better not be as I didn't rub our 8 in a row from 1991-1999 in their faces...too badly

Scott, for the most part, you can say that about UCLA/USC alums. Most of L.A. does swing back and forth between the two teams (we only have student bodies of <20,000 undergrads and L.A. has 12 million people so obviously a lot don't have ties to each school) depending on who is "hot" at the time. But for actual alums of each school, we would never pull for the other team except maybe in bowl games (like you admitted to pulling for Big Ten teams, we pull for Pac Ten teams). Actually I'll admit to rooting for Pac Ten teams in NON-conference games because the Pac Ten is always seen as a lesser conference to the Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC that I love it when we downdress someone out of conference.

As much as I hate USC I can't say that I didn't smile a bit when the East Coast Biased media got a look at the Orange Bowl last year

Funny thing is both of Boz' nephews [twins] suit up for UCLA. He has since backed away from those comments and is not wearing either UCLA or OU colors, or going to be on either sideline this weekend, but did admit to the LA times that he will be rooting for UCLA...but will go back to rooting for OU once his nephews graduate from UCLA.

They are his sister's kids and their father left them a long time ago so Boz has been their father figure for many years, hence the "closer than the average Uncle" ties between the kids and Boz.

Boz actually goes to a ton of UCLA practices, and actually started LAST year when his nephews had signed with UCLA (they're true frosh now).

I wouldn't say UCLA is still miffed about Boz's comments. Most kids who go here were barely BORN when he said them. Think about that and start feeling old .

But still being on campus, I certainly get no sense that it's even an issue. ESPN I'm sure hasn't been on our campus in years (since the 20 win streak back in 1997-1998) so I'm pretty sure they're just coming up with dreck to have something to say about a matchup that has lost some of its luster due to OU's poor performance in Game 1.